As alluded to last week when talking about father-of-the-year Adrian Peterson, I mentioned a fondness of Teddy Bridgewater for the upcoming season. Part of the fondness could be the amount of puns that could be used in his name, but that feels more like a Chris Berman wet dream than anything entertaining beyond a dad joke, but in terms of fantasy football, there’s a lot to like here.

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As the title denotes, it looks to be that all the big NFL news is over, for the most part until the draft. And now it’s time to clear out all the remaining news items no matter how small they might be. (That’s what I wish she said.) Wait, what? So all these little tidbits will be taken care of in a very diligent fashion! Maybe. And it has nothing to do with the fact that “tidbits” is such a great word. Now, there probably won’t be a lot of crossover fantasy appeal, but as we transition to talking about the draft and starting to spotlighting players for the upcoming season, well, you’ll forgive me if I fudge the line a little and talk about general football news. Mmm, tidbits and fudge. Regardless, let’s get to all the happenings before the 49ers and Browns decide to trade owners in an effort to cure depression in the form of a different but similar depression.

While March Madness in full effect, the NFL has taken themselves off the center stage and the transaction pace set earlier in the month has fallen off the wayside, much like the 49ers franchise. But there are few tidbits that are Fantasy Football related, and the first one is: What exactly will happen with father-of-the-year Adrian Peterson? It’s no secret that he doesn’t want to be playing for the Vikings (dat victim card tho), and while the child abuse allegations are still very serious, it’s hard for the team not to dream of an emerging Teddy Bridgewater having Peterson in the backfield. Especially since another team trading for the embattled back would mean giving up multiple first round picks and absorbing a 60-million-dollar contact, well, it just seems more and more that this is just posturing by Adrian Peterson and his agent. Or whining. While it might be fun to think about him running behind the Cowboys line or being matched up with Tom Brady, or the ultimate karma and being traded to the Raiders, I find it hard to believe that he’ll be anywhere but Minnesota when the season starts. Which, in terms of fantasy football, isn’t the worst case. Not even close. I’ll be talking a lot about Bridgewater leading up to the start of the season, but I liked what I saw last year and think the Vikings could surprise a lot of people. Granted, we’re still early in the offseason, but even though he went from Purple Jesus to Purple Satan, it’s telling that he’s still Purple…

And by Black Hole, I mean “Heaven”, which is resoundingly considered as such in Oakland. It makes so much sense! After wondering a few days ago what actually happened to Trent Richardson, the Raiders wasted no time in trying to figure out if this once promising running back can actually produce something north of a 1-yard average run. Or be a better Maurice Jones-Drew. They signed him to a two-year incentive laden deal in what seems to be a natural match, and while I’m hesitant to think that this might change his future fantasy implications, I’d like to think that a change of scenery was needed here and that Richardson could end up being a productive back. Granted, production and Raiders aren’t exactly synonymous, but I want to give the benefit of the doubt here.

While I would generally lead-off such a transaction filled post with the most important one this past week (Tim Tebow trying out for the Eagles, of course), I’d like to start the lede with a different bit of news. And while it touches on the overall macro of the Philadelphia Eagles transformation into the Philadelphia Oregon Ducks, Ryan Mathews leaving the Chargers has caused an emotional earthquake in house Jay. What? That’s what my house is called. There were some questions concerning whether or not Mathews would sign last week, as after there was an agreement, DeMarco Murray quickly signed as well, putting the whole situation into flux. But we have a clear winner, and those winners appear to be the Eagles, the Philadelphia fanbase, probably the National Football League as a whole, and probably Chargers fans who grew tired of Mathews fumbling at the two-yard line and breaking clavicle bones. Please note: none of the winners were in fantasy football. And why is that? Because along with signing half the free agent class already, the Eagles have decided to sign both Murray and Mathews. Despite what my heart says about Mathews leaving (IT HURTS!), one things for sure, we have the dreaded RBBC (running-back-by-committee) now officially in effect for the Eagles in 2015, which will presumably drag down the value of both. While Murray would probably suffer the most, it appears that even Mathews will be a possibly overrated selection going into the 2015 season. (Many will point to the Kelly’s system and lack of health last year as points.) Sure, that prevents me from calling him underrated for the 20th straight year, but still, while Murray and Mathews going to the Eagles could be quite an interesting duo to watch next year, they’re probably not the duo to own in fantasy. Then again, who knows, Chip Kelly could innovate 600 carries for each of them. Or they could both go down with season-ending injuries. Naaaah, zero-chance of that happening…

Yes, there were some choice news items between the Eagles trade of LeSean McCoy to yesterday’s whopper (with cheese, mind you), and of course they occurred while I enjoyed Spring Training in Phoenix. But I’m back and here to make amends, and it’s as if I was astoundingly prescient with knowing when the right time was to come back to report on all the NFL news items missed. Late yesterday afternoon, the New Orleans Saints traded Jimmy Graham (BUT DOES HE PLAY BASKETBALL?) and their 4th round selection to the Seattle Seahawks for Max Unger and their 1st round selection in the upcoming draft. The move clearly shows two things: First, the Saints are clearing large amounts of cap space. When you combine this transaction with their other releases and pay cuts, you might call this a heavy re-tool. Also, it will allow Breesus to really live up to his name by carrying this now heavy cross. For the Seahawks, well, I guess if you don’t fire your offensive coordinator for a questionable call that may have lost a Super Bowl, I guess quelling the masses by getting the best (or second best, depending on what the Gronk injured) tight end is a strong plan B. Intrestingly enough, though both McCoy and now Graham have moved within a week, elite players at their respective positions, you can make an argument that then the Eagles, and now the Saints had pretty good returns. I mean, if you’re going to burn it down, burn that f*cker down right, amiright folks?

Something happened? Whaaa? If you haven’t been paying attention to the NFL, the Eagles and Bills have tried their best to suck your attention back in with quite the trade this past Tuesday night. The Philadelphia Eagles have a trade in place to send running back LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills for Kiko Alonso. While the trade itself may be labeled as all part of “Chip Kelly’s Plan (which is also trademarked as “Innovative”), the Eagles recent deluge of transactions is more-or-less just building cap space for what is considered a potentially above-average free agent class. Along with LeSean “I’m going…to Buffalo?” McCoy’s departure, Cary Wiliams, Trent Cole, James Casey, and Todd Herremans were all released, clearing 30.275 million in cap, creating roughly 48.6 million in space so Chip Kelly can buy more white players. I’m kidding, of course. What I meant was more gritty players. Though this trade won’t go into affect until March 10th, when the 2015 NFL season officially begins, there are plenty of fantasy ramifications to talk about…

So we’re back at it, loosely going over 2014 while also looking forward to 2015. It’s an interesting exercise, if only because it’s the most excercise I’ve gotten in a while. Also, seeing as how the 2014 season seems like a while ago, yet 2015 looking so far away, we’re stuck in this sort of buffer zone where the biggest news item of the day is Steven Jackson getting released. But hey, at least we’re not talking about deflategate. Today, we’ll cover running backs, and while we do, also remember that these are way-too-early rankings. I mean, consider how volatile they are, as we already have a new starting quarterback for the Texans in Ryan Mallet. Oh, wait a second…Oh, wait a second…that’s probably the worst example I could have used.

Well, if you’ve followed me at all the past few years, (in violation of that restraining order, mind you), you know that I love throwing out some bold predictions to spicen things up a bit. Because maybe I’m cooking while playing fantasy football. Who doesn’t? You’re the weird one. Regardless, there is some tidying up to do when it comes to how my predictions for the past season turned out, and I’m here to pay my amends, eat my crow, and to provide a wonderful face for being really really bold, and quite possibly italic. (See what I did there?) Did I get everything wrong? Hopefully not. In fact, I might have gotten all of them right…Who knows? (I do.) And seeing as how one of them involves Ryan Mathews, you’d have to think that getting all of them right was not possible. You’d be correct with that assumption. So I’ll be preparing my crow, with as much salt as possible, while we figure out how everything went down…

While normally we here at Razzball would concentrate on Fantasy Football news and analysis, or, in the very least, try to add fantasy context to that which doesn’t exactly fit the mold, I won’t try to cover or sugarcoat this too much. Unless it’s your mother. While there really isn’t anything to be gleaned from the following, except maybe sugar, suffice to say, I have thoughts on the subject, and the subject is the possibility of the Chargers moving to Los Angeles. Mind you, this aren’t intricate or well-thought out, um, thoughts (I was in trouble like two words in…), but as the predominant, or only Chargers fan of the site, and probably the entire readership, I did want to weigh in on the fact that there are some fascinating things going with the Rams, Raiders, and my Chargers that involve bringing the NFL to the great (also terrible) city of Los Angeles. I’m not quite to sure what to think of all of this, and I’m sure you don’t care, but I do write for a living, and the logical progression, I would think, is to use writing as a vehicle to find some sort of catharsis with the fact that my home team may move roughly 60 miles north. And with the Rams and Raiders possibly in tow, we could, at the very least, come to the determination right now that this would be the saddest three-way ever…